Griffin Naruhodo Part 7

“Ridiculous!” Leo roared. “How could a dead person drive a car?!” The idea surprised me as well, since I’m not a fan of zombies. Though honestly, everything involving this murder so far surprised me. I looked inside the car, and the large stone stole my attention.

“Looks like my good friend here already has the answer,” Griffin said.

I shook my head. “I’m not sure I understand. Did that stone…?”

“Yes, what I think happened was after the killer shot the victim, he or she tossed a rock onto the gas pedal through the open window. In fact, I’m going to venture the murderer in our case is this thief’s accomplice. The killer sat in the passenger seat, opened his door, walked to the driver side, opened the door, and killed this woman. The angle of the bullet hit the passenger window on the other side. Then he or she closed the doors, and let the dead joy ride. None of the bags of money can be found, so killer probably killed their partner and stole the money, backing up my theory.”

I shuddered. I didn’t approve of crime of course, but even then, betraying your partner seemed horrific to me.

“I dunno,” Leo said. “That seems awfully complicated when they could have just shot the woman.”

“It may be strange, but I stand by what I said. I can’t find any marks in the snow the implies this happened, so the murder must have occurred before 1:30 AM when the snowfall stopped. I’m absolutely sure that the victim died before Lang encountered it in the photo, and…” Griffin’s voice trailed off, and he frowned. He placed a hand against the victim’s throat. “Wow, I should have checked that sooner. I’m no coroner, but this person is freezing cold, and her blood barely leaked from her wound. Sure it might be snowing but a person shouldn’t freeze this fast. I’d say this person died much earlier than we thought. Possibly hours earlier.”

I stood there stunned and staring at the corpse. She died hours earlier? Before the robbery? How did that make sense?

“Ha. There’s duct tape on her sleeve, interesting. Hm? What’s this?” Griffin reached into a victim’s pocket, one that I didn’t notice before. He pulled out a strange yellow card. My guts twisted; even I knew the meaning of the card. We were dealing with a smuggling ring.

“Leo,” Griffin said. “Have you ID’d this woman?”

“Course I have. Received the results from headquarters a few minutes ago. Apparently her name was Trid Por,” Leo said.

“All right Leo, we’re returning to the bank. You should stay here and see if you can’t find the gun,” Griffin said.

“Watch it kid, no need to tell me what to do. I’ll find that murder weapon faster than you can leave,” Leo said.

“I thought I made it clear she died before the gun shot, meaning the gun isn’t the murder weapon. I’d say she was poisoned.”

“Poisoned you say?” I spoke up. “How do you reckon that?”

Griffin shrugged. “Her face. Mouth. Run a lung check on her, Leo, just to confirm. I think it was a poisonous gas that did her in.” With that, Griffin turned away and returned to our car. I looked back at Leo, who obviously didn’t like being bossed around, then I followed my partner.